Analyst predicts Apple working on netbook

Apple will introduce two netbooks at the MacWorld Conference and Expo next month that will be tied to the company's App Store, as is its iPhone, an analyst has said.

By
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld (US)
| Dec 16, 2008

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Apple will introduce two netbooks at the MacWorld Conference and Expo next month that will be tied to the company's App Store, as is its iPhone, an analyst has claimed.

"I don't have any inside information," said Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research, as he spelled out his take on Apple's next hardware move. "This is just by triangulation."

Citing evidence that included the gloomy economy, climbing sales of the least-expensive laptops, and comments CEO Steve Jobs made in October, Gottheil said Apple would show a pair of netbooks at January's conference, then as it did two years before with the iPhone, put it on the market mid-year.

"They like to have a big surprise at MacWorld," Gottheil said. "They don't need to have one, but they like to."

But Gottheil had more than just Apple's habit of springing surprises in mind. "It looks like netbooks are real, and getting a certain amount of traction. And this recession looks serious."

In a research note three weeks ago, Gottheil concluded that Apple would enter the netbook market sometime in the first six months of 2009, in large part because of slowing consumer spending. Unlike other computer makers, Apple has avoided the bottom of the market, leaving it vulnerable as $300-$400 (£200-£300) netbook sales have surged. The problem with producing a netbook, Gottheil said then, was that if it was simply a stripped-down MacBook, Apple ran the risk of cannibalising sales of its higher-priced, and higher-margin, notebooks.

That's why he believes Apple will introduce netbooks next year that, like the company's iPhone, will exist in an Apple-controlled "closed system" where software is delivered via the App Store, device restore is done from iTunes, backup is available through an optional online service, most likely MobileMe, and peripheral and add-on choices will be limited.

With the infrastructure and connections Apple already has, it can redefine the netbook category. "The issue here is making it dirt-simple for the user," he said. "Macs have a good deal less hassle than PCs, but they don't have zero hassle. To some people, they are intrinsically intimidating."

The problem with current netbooks, including those powered by open-source Linux, is that while they may sport a simplified interface and be attractively priced, they lack many of the elements that Apple has. "The vendors did not invest in everything necessary to deliver the device, including software development, partnerships with other hardware vendors and online services," Gottheil said.

To succeed, a netbook needs strong software, an online delivery system for that software and "enforced limits" on the supported peripherals, he said, pointing to Google as a possible software partner and supplier, the App Store as the delivery system and Hewlett-Packard as the most likely peripheral partner.

Gottheil's betting that Apple will unveil two netbooks next month, one about the size of the MacBook Air, the other a $599 machine similar to the smaller Linux- or Windows-based netbooks.

The time between then and a mid-year release would be required, by Gottheil's reasoning, to prime the developer pump, as Apple did earlier this year when it announced it would open the iPhone to third-party programs four months before it launched the iPhone 3G.

"I don't necessarily expect it to be a touch screen," he said. "In fact, I don't think it will. But I do think that the interface would present simple, straight-forward choices."

On the down side, although this different tack would reduce MacBook cannibalisation, some would be inevitable, Gottheil predicted. And if Apple sells the device at the $599 price he expects - that number derived by parsing Jobs ' comment that the company doesn't "know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk" - that still puts its system at nearly twice that of the lowest-priced netbooks.

"The issue, really, is that even Macs are too complicated for some people," Gottheil said. "But a [Mac] netbook doesn't have to be all things for all people."